standard Pilot shooting rates

Sven

Sven

Active member
Have a big pilot to shoot, it's pretty much in the bag though some connections we have as long as we don't blow it in our quote. Just checking if anyone has any experience in docu style filming and can recommend how to price this type of job.. Such as shows on the discovery channel and AE. It will be a 20min pilot. 1 week of filming pretty much none stop. So lots of tapes and lots of time. Do we use our day rates as a starting point or is there a better way to quote this potentially huge huge job for our crew (three camera crew).

Thanks.
 
If you look around you'll discover (especially on this board) that there is no such thing as "standard rates". If you have a good connection, there should be no harm is asking what (even ballpark) they have budgeted for the pilot. They should be able to give you an idea and then you can go from there. I can honestly tell you I've worked on pilots that have spent nearly 1 million dollars and others that say they have 15K (or less). For Discovery channel I would GUESS somewhere btwn 25K - 125K for a 20 minute pilot. but I stress that is a GUESS. You need to ask for more info from them. Good luck, I hope you get it!
 
your day rates are fine. If competeing with other bids, you can offer a week or a flat turn key rate. This is a good one to get half down on and half when you are done. I have made enough p[ilots to know the success rate. Don't work for free, man.
 
Is the network commissioning a pilot? If they are giving you a full ride, you will very likely need to prepare a full, defensible budget - from pre-production through post and deliverables.

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